Charlie Mechem has had one amazing ride

Jun. 24, 2013

Charles Mechem in his Taft law office. Mechem was Taft Broadcasting CEO from 1967-87, when the company built Kings Island, owned the Hanna-Barbera cartoon studio and donated Coney Island land for Riverbend. / The Enquirer/Adam Birkan

Mechem tells a story about each one, many from his days running Cincinnati’s old Taft Broadcasting and Great American Broadcasting (1967-90), in his new autobiography, “Who’s That With Charlie?” (Clerisy Press; $23.95).

“I began reflecting on how lucky I was to have the opportunity to meet such a variety of people,” said Mechem, who turns 93 in September.

As a Taft, Stettinius & Hollister attorney in the 1960s, he represented the Reds and Play-Doh, and he negotiated the deal with former Cleveland Browns coach Paul Brown to form the Cincinnati Bengals.

Two years after Cincinnati businessman Carl Lindner bought Taft, Mechem served as commissioner of the Ladies Professional Golf Association. He was golfer Arnold Palmer’s personal business adviser, and the non-executive board chairman of U.S. Shoe, Cincinnati Bell and Convergys.

He was honored as a Great Living Cincinnatian in 2000 with the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and former Mayor Bobbie Sterne.

Here, Mechem tells some of his favorite stories. Think of them as his greatest hits:

Landing Paul Brown to birth the Bengals

When the National Football League planned expansion in the 1960s, “Commissioner Pete Rozelle basically said: If anybody gets Paul Brown, they’ll get the franchise, because Paul has meant everything to this league.”

So Mechem led a small group to La Jolla, Calif., where “Paul was living like a deposed South American dictator,” after being fired in Cleveland. Brown insisted on full control so he couldn’t be fired again.

“I realized down the road that meant control of everything down to the color of the toilet paper in the ladies room,” Mechem said. “We worked out a fair deal. It was a marriage made in heaven. There was no one alive – literally – who could do it like he did.”

How Q102 almost was lost before it started

After replacing the late Hulbert (Hub) Taft Jr. in 1967, some Taft Broadcasting executives were concerned their seven FM classical music stations were losing too much money. Some suggested the company surrender the licenses.

“I remember saying, ‘You know, I don’t ever want to give back a government-granted monopoly.’ Let’s just run them as cheaply as we can until we figure out something.”

By the early 1970s, classical WKRC-FM changed to rockin’ WKRQ-FM. “The FMs became the cash cows. But we came that close to just giving them back!” he said.

Coney Island model for Disney theme parks

With the government preventing companies from owning more than seven each of AM, FM and TV stations, Taft Broadcasting leaders explored branching into theme parks.

They flew to Los Angeles for advice from Roy Disney, who founded Disneyland and Walt Disney Productions with his brother. As the meeting ended, Disney said: “You have the finest small amusement park in the United States right in your own backyard in Coney Island,” Mechem recalled.

“It turned out that Coney Island was one of the first parks Roy and Walt visited when they were beginning to dream about the amusement park business.”

Mechem made the deal for Taft to buy Coney from the Wachs family and Charles Sawyer, a Taft law firm senior partner. “The Wachs family became our spearhead to build Kings Island,” he said.

Long-time friendship with man on the moon

In the early 1970s, Warren County resident Neil Armstrong was curious about the construction of Kings Island, so Mechem personally gave him a tour.

“We hit it off that day,” Mechem said. The two men became best friends, with the former astronaut serving on Taft’s board, and Neil and Carol Armstrong traveling around the world vacationing with Charlie and Marilyn Mechem.

“Neil loved Taft Broadcasting. We’d have management meetings every year, and more often than not, he’d end up on the balcony that night singing with ‘the boys.’ The guys still talk about it,” said Mechem, who delivered Armstrong’s eulogy last year.

One of Mechem’s favorite stories is about touring Leonardo da Vinci’s birthplace during an Italian vacation with the Armstrongs, Dick and Joyce Farmer, and Roger and Joyce Howe. When the tour guide didn’t know much about models of da Vinci’s inventions, Armstrong described each replica and how it worked.

“I turned around and saw 20 people behind us thinking he was the tour guide! The guy was just absolutely brilliant.”

Lion Country Safari, 50 marauding baboons

In the book, Mechem gives his take on two infamous Kings Island incidents – the Sky Ride that stranded riders for hours in 1977, and 50 baboons that jumped over the Lion Country Safari fence in 1976.

“We had 50 mean baboons roaming Warren County! It was a classic story of a company that thought it knew what it was doing – and they literally made monkeys out of us.”

Kings Island Golf Center, designed by Jack Nicklaus

Roy Disney also offered this advice on amusement parks: Buy five times the acreage you need, so you don’t get landlocked like Disneyland.

Among Taft’s purchases was a farm bisected by I-71, which provided land for a golf course across the highway. “Jack Nicklaus was just beginning to design courses on his own. We got Jack, and it was the beginning of a wonderful friendship,” Mechem said.

Nicklaus used his clout to get a Professional Golf Association tournament in 1973, its second year, through 1977. But the October date was problematic.

“One year, on the final day of the tournament, the Bengals were playing the Browns, and the Reds were in the World Series. And I said, ‘Enough!’ About that time, the LPGA was looking for a home for its championship, and we hosted it for 12 years (1978-89).”

'The Running Man,' then a series of movie flops

More than a decade after Hanna-Barbera’s success with the animated “Charlotte’s Web” movie, Taft Broadcasting execs decided to make films.

Their first was a big hit – “The Running Man” (1987) starring Arnold Schwarzenegger – followed by four or five flops. Mechem pulled the plug after bombing with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep in “Ironweed” (1987). “I decided the movie business was not for me when we failed with those two (stars) doing a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel,” he said.

Riverbend Music Center: How the deal got done

When Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra board members David Joseph and Jim Ewell sought funds for an outdoor concert facility in the early 1980s, they had no clue where to build it until they saw Mechem. “I said, if you build it at Coney Island and name it after our founder – the Hulbert Taft Jr. Center for the Performing Arts – we’ll give you a million dollars,” Mechem said.

The center was built and named for Hulbert, but everybody knows it as Riverbend. “It’s such a unique spot, a beautiful riverfront location with a lot of trees. I love the place.” ⬛

I tell stories about people from TV, radio and movies in print and on my TV & Media blog at Cincinnati.com/blogs/tv. You can reach me at jkiesewetter@enquirer.com